Day 26: This is Hill Country

On the way out of Camp Wood, this ‘ole boy hollers out at me, “You got some hills ahead!”

Yah, I know I said to myself. I’ve poured over the elevation profile. I’ve seen how hard this is going to be. But cartographers are lazy. The maps aren’t that detailed. And today I did a lot, a lot more elevation than I thought I would. I was thinking I’d do somewhere around 2,000-3,000ft of climbing. Boy was I wrong.

5,579 feet of climbing. Over 90 miles. I am spent.

Short notes from the day’s ride:

The wind is still very windy. Luckily most of the day was cross and with the wind. Up in mountains it actually wasn’t too bad.

I got chased by a dachshund on two wheels. The poor lil guy had his rear legs on rollers. He wasn’t very fast.

I got up to 49mph!!!! These hills were steep!

I climbed several hills at 2mph. These hills were steep!

Lots of motorcycles out on these roads. Texas Highway 337 is one of the ‘three twisted sisters’ which are very popular motorcycle rides.

Motorcycles = good food. I had a great burger at the motorcycle stop in Leakey, Texas. Best of the trip.

Long, long day in the saddle – I was on the road for 12 hours. This was the first time where I stopped for both lunch and dinner while on the road.

Riding at night was fun and peaceful as usual. I went 20-30 miles in the dark without a single car passing me on highway 39 into Kerrville. Got to enjoy the sounds of nature by myself out there – the birds, the bugs, the flowing water of the river I was following.

Road conditions today were mixed. Luckily the worst roads were also the emptiest, so I could just ride right down the middle.

There are some cool ranch houses out there – and some big ones, too! All lit up at night they look pretty cool.

Some pictures:

Rollers & chip seal.

Leakey Eagles – sounds gross!

Great burger & lunch stop with the motorcycle crowd.

Hill country indeed.

Valleys & hills.

I really liked this ranch gate design.

I’ve seen lots of ‘no trespassing’ signs. This is the first time I’ve seen a security camera on a fence. Also, wouldn’t it be pretty easy to disable it?